A Comparative Study On The Classroom Environment Of The Integrated Foreign Language Course In Grade Five Of Primary School In China And Thailand

Classroom Environment, or Classroom Climate, refers to students’ or teachers’ perception for the classroom to which they belong. Classroom Environment is the potential factor which determines the development of students and is also a non-ignorable factor for those educators who expect to improve education quality. Taking Class Three, Grade Five of the Tang Eng School in Thailand and Class Two, Grade Five of Jun Wu Primary School in China as research objects, this thesis aims to compare the classroom environment of the foreign language teaching in these two countries from the following five perspectives: classroom discipline, teacher/student relationship, competition, learning burden and learning attitude. With comparative analysis, the author obtains the following conclusions. First, the English classes in Jun Wu Primary School are more disciplined than the Chinese classes in Tang Eng School. Second, in the classes of foreign language teaching, the teacher/student relationship in China is more harmonious than in Thailand. However, this relationship between students and teachers in Thailand is closer than in China after class. Third, the competitive atmosphere of Chinese teaching classes in Tang Eng School is stronger than that of English teaching classes in Jun Wu Primary School. Fourth, students’ burden of learning Chinese in Tang Eng School is heavier than the burden of leaning English in Jun Wu Primary School. Fifth, for the learning attitude, students in Jun Wu Primary School bears a better learning attitude towards foreign language learning. In addition, this thesis proves that there exists similarity between classroom discipline and learning attitude in Thailand’s Chinese teaching classes, which shows that most Chinese teaching classes are not disciplined and most students do not attach importance to Chinese learning. Based on the results of this research, the author provides some suggestions on the training for volunteer Chinese teachers and the native Chinese teachers in Thailand.